





£ v >. I 

& ® » ° -v 



"0/ .- 




•o* :^ 







W** /\ lljK- ** v ^ '- 



i 










LECTURE. 





ON 



COL. INGERSOLL'S LECTURE 



ON 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 



w 



BY 



REV JOHN GUSS. 






pttslissbd zfozes the -A/o ,, a?s±©Ea 

BY THE 

CENTRAL PENNA M. K BOOK ROOM, 

HARRISBURG, PA. 
1878. 



LECTURE. 




N-PLACE STRICTURES 



ON 



COL. INGERSOLUS LECTURE 



ON 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT." 



ENDORSEMENT. 






Mountain Grove Camp Ground, August'15, 1878.. 
Rev. J. Guss : 

Dear Sir— We the undersigned, having listened with delight and profit to 
your strictures upon the lecture of (Jol. Ingersoll, are so fully impressed with the 
edifying character of your criticisms that we respectfully request you to give it 
the form of a lecture for delivery or publication. 
Yours in the cause of truth, 



Rev. W. W. Evans, 

Presiding Elder Danville District, 

Bloomsburg, Pa. 
J. W. Ferree, 

Professor State Normal School, 
Bloomsburg, Pa. 
M. W. Jackson, Berwick, Pa. 
Rev. Sam'l Barnes, Philadelphia. 
Rev. H. E. SuTHERLAND,Hazleton,Pa. 
Rev. S. W. Sears, Sunbury, Pa. 
Rev. W. H. Dill, Clearfield, Pa. 



Rev. M. Li. Dunn, Northumberland. 
Rev. A. M. Barnitz, Milton, Pa. 
Rev. H. S. Mendenhall, Orange- 

ville, Pa. 
Rev. G. H. Day, Riverside, Pa. 
Bev. G-eorge Warren, Shickshinny. 
Rev. R. H. Colburn, Weatherly, Pa. 
Rev. B. P. King, Watsontown, Pa. 
Rev. J. T. Wilson, White Haven, Pa. 
Rev. M. P. Crosthwait, Montours- 
ville, Pa. 

Bedford, Pa., September 2, 1878. 
My Dear Brother Guss: 

I take great pleasure in appending my name to the honored list already 
recommending or endorsing the sermon, or lecture, in question. I wish a printed 
copy of it could be put in the hands of every thinking reader in the land. 

Rev. N. S. BUCKINGHAM. 



The undersigned is prepared to deliver the above lecture on moderate terms^ 

JOHN GUSS. 
Elysburg, Northumberland county, Pa., November, 1878. 






And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of 
holiness ; the unclean shall not pass over it ; but it shall be for those : the way 
faring men, though fools, shall not err therein.— Isaiah. 

I am the way. — Jesus. 



Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1878, by Rev. John Guss, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



Telegraph Print. 



COMMON-PLACE STRICTURES 

—ON— 

COL. IMERSOLL'S LECTURE ON "INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT." 



In concluding his criticism on the Old Testament, in his 
Age of Reason, Tom Paine said: "I have gone through the 
Bible as a man would go through a wood with an axe on his 
shoulders and fell trees ; here they lie, and the priests, if they 
can, may replant them. They may perhaps stick them in 
the ground, but they will never grow." In a recent lecture 
on "Intellectual Development," a disciple of Tom Paine 
gives utterance to his thoughts, at the close of the lecture 
in the following language ; " We are all travelers on the 
great plain we call life, and there is nobody quite sure what 
road to take — not quite dead sure, you know. There are 
lots of guide- boards on the plain, and you find thousands of 
people swearing to-day that their guide-board is the only 
board that shows the right direction. I go and talk to them, 
and they say, "You go that way, or you will be damned." 
I go to another, and they say, " You go this way, or you will 
be damned." They are all fighting and quarreling, and beat- 
ing each other, and then I say, " Let us cut down all these 
guide-boards." "What?" they say, "leave us without any 
guide-boards V I say, "Yes, let every man take the road he 
thinks is right, and let everybody else wish him a happy 
journey." I have selected this sentence as the basis of some 
commonplace strictures on this lecture, because it is the final 
presentation of his views, and embodies substantially the 
points embraced in the lecture, 

1st. War against Evangelical Christianity or Orthodoxy. 

2d. Uncertainty as to the right way. 

3d. Liberty as the probable right way. 

The author of this lecture does not seem to have quite the 
amount of assurance that his master had, for he thought the 



work had been completed by himself; the trees were pros- 
trated and dead beyond the possibility of a resurrection ; but 
now, after the lapse of a century, Col. Ingersoll steps upon 
the scene, looks out over the plain, and sees something still 
standing and obstructing his vision — veritable trees, green, 
flourishing and fruitful, with guide-boards upon them. By 
these guide-boards he does not mean Judaism, or Mohamed- 
anism, or Confucianism, or Budhism, or any of the forms of 
Paganism, as these are scarcely mentioned at all; but he 
means the Bible and Evangelical Christianity. The whole 
burden of his effort is against these. The several branches 
of Evangelical Christianity constitute these guide-boards, 
and he proposes to take them out of the way. He hunts up 
Tom Paine's old axe, which has laid out in the weather for a 
hundred years, grinds the rust off, and goes to work with a 
will, an energy and a purpose worthy of a better cause. He 
is gifted, fluent, witty, bold, daring, defiant, and the ordinary 
hearer is liable to be carried along on the flow of his oratory 
and receive much harm ; but when the calm returns and the 
sober second thought obtains, and he looks back over the 
plain, he will find the trees still standing, the guide-boards 
still up, and the toilworn traveler still seeking shelter under 
their branches and looking for direction on the guide-board 
Methinks I see one of these dusty pilgrims now, as he seeks 
yonder the ample shade of one of these trees and looks up 
for directions from the board. Hark! I hear him read, "I 
am the way." Aye, Aye, he has it, he has it; but see there, 
what is that debris, that rubbish under the trees ? I see there 
the broken fragments of an old axe handle ; there, too, is the 
blunted steel, and there the crown of an old hat, and there 
the remains of an old pair of boots, a broken cane, and an 
old pair of spectacle frames, with one eye knocked out and 
the other cracked. Evidently there has been a man there 
before, but where is he now 1 ? What has become of him? 
Answer — "I have seen the wicked in great power and spread- 
ing himself like a green bay tree, yet he passed away, and 
lo ! he was not, yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.' 
"Travelers on the great plain of life, nobody quite sure what 
road to take." Uncertainty ! This element of uncertainty 



— 5— 

-crops out in the course of the lecture frequently. Take a 
few samples. He gives a distorted version of the Bible story 
of creation — says the Supreme being concluded to make the 
earth and one man — never thought of making a woman at 
the same time ; that was a second thought, though he thinks 
that second thoughts are best. The man was placed in a 
park or garden to dress and keep it, and in the next sentence 
he says the man had nothing to do. But we cannot stop for 
contradictions. The man went moping around as if he was 
waiting for a train ; got weary and lonesome. Then the Su- 
preme Being concluded to make a woman, but having used 
up all the nothing to make the earth and the man, he had to 
take part of the man to make the woman. So he took a bone, 
or cutlet, and made the woman of that, and considering the 
amount and quality of the raw material used, he thinks it was 
the most successful job ever accomplished. Presently this 
man and woman set up housekeeping, and were allowed to 
do most anything except eat an apple. He thinks if he had 
been there he would have had an apple off that tree inside of 
fifteen minutes. Now the devil appeared upon the scene, and 
of course they ate the apple, and were driven out of the gar- 
den, and an extra police force was stationed at the entrance 
to keep them out. Then commenced mumps and measles, 
and whooping cough, and all the array of diseases. Then 
men began to fight about politics and religion, and to scratch 
each others' eyes out, and they have been at it ever since. 
Such is the substance of the story as he gives it. But he 
says he would not wish to deceive any one, for he dont 
know that the story is true. Of course he don't mean it to 
be believed. Here is this uncertainty. Then he gives an- 
other version of the same story from the literature of the 
Hindus. According to this, the Supreme Brahma concluded 
to make the earth, a man and a woman. The man and wo- 
man were placed on a beautiful island (Ceylon,) with surround- 
ings of magnificence and plenty surpassing description. The 
man went west one day, and saw across the waters another 
country, with its mountains and hills. He persuaded his wife 
to emigrate, took her on his back and crossed a narrow strip 
of land, and when he was over he heard a crash, and looking 



— 6— 

back the land had disappeared, and nothing remained but 
some rocks, and these rocks are called the footsteps of Admi 
to this day. But here the man found, instead of beauty, 
barrenness and sterility, wastes and rocks. Then he heard 
the voice of the Supreme Brahma cursing them to the lowest 
hell. But the man said, "Curse me, but not the woman, for 
I was in the fault." Then the woman interposed and said, 
" If thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me, because I love 
him." That is the kind of man and woman to start a world 
with, Ingersoll thinks. This story, he says, is about four 
thousand years older than the Bible story, and so much bet- 
ter and loftier, so much more in it, that he says when he read 
it he hoped if either of them was true it was this one. But 
here again comes this same uncertainty. He don't know 
that either is true. Before he gets through the lecture he 
tries it again on the same story of man's origin, and comes 
almost to the conclusion that man has sprung from the lower 
animals, because there is so much of the hyena, and the 
jackal, and the snake about him. His idea is that away back 
in a bygone age something began to wiggle and wiggled up, 
up to humanity, and then on up, up, until the result was Col. 
R. G. Ingersoll! Upon the whole, he prefers to belong to a 
race which has sprung from the skulless vertebrae, and has 
developed up to a Shakspeare, than to belong to a race of 
beings which commenced with a perfect pair, and upon whom 
the Lord has lost money from that day to this. But here, as 
elsewhere, he is not positive. He says he stands about 8 to 7 
on this development theory. So that he lacks one-eighth of 
being certain. He is still in the uncertainties. Finally, on this 
point, in nearly the last sentence in the lecture, he says: "We 
are all travelers on the great plain we call life, and there is 
nobody quite sure what road to take." Uncertainty. Now, 
I want to say that Col. Ingersoll is not alone in this uncer- 
tainty. He is here like all of his class. All that class of 
persons who array themselves against the Bible, and against 
Christianity, seem to get along to their own satisfaction as 
long as they are picking flaws and finding fault with the Bible 
and with the Christian system, but when attempting to find a 
substitute for the Bible and Christianity, then they are in the 



mist and in the fog ; then they are groping in the dark ; then 
they are dealing in uncertainties ; then they are at sea with- 
out a chart, without a compass, without a rudder, without a 
guiding star. "Nobody is quite sure what road to take.' 
Pitiable condition! Think of a man out on a vast plain, 
away from human habitation, with plenty of roads about him, 
but he don't know which one to take. Have you ever, in 
your travels, come to a halt at the intersection of several roads, 
and tound yourself bewildered because you did not know which 
one to take? I have been in such a fix more than once, and 
after looking and studying in vain to know just what road to 
take, I have made a venture, and after going some distance 
I have stopped, and studied, and looked, and then retraced 
my steps, and I can tell you from personal experience that 
my sensations at the time were anything but comfortable, 
anything but agreeable, anything but happy. A creeping 
sensation of horror would come over me in spite of me, and 
the word lost, lost, lost, would be voiced in the air about me. 
And yet this is Ingersoll's condition to-day, and this is where 
he would have you and me. I am sure I do riot envy any 
man who is in such a plight. "Nobody is quite sure what 
road to take." Suppose I give you something better. "And 
a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called 
the way of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it; but 
it shall be for those ; the wayfaring men, though fools, shall 
not err therein." Thank God for a better way — a certain 
way. But Ingersoll makes a choice. He makes a venture* 
He must have a religion. And supposing the plain is clear- 
ed of guide-boards, what then? Why then "let every man 
take the road he thinks is right, and let everybody wish him 
a happy journey." That is his final definition or application 
of liberty, which he thinks is probably the right way. I say 
probably^ "for nobody is quite sure," and he is one of these 
nobodies. In the outstart of the lecture he says: "I simply 
believe in liberty; that is my religion, that is the altar where 
I worship, that is my shrine — that every man shall have the 
same right that I have — that is my religion." He does not 
get on far until he says : " The world has not been fit to live 
in for fifty years — no liberty in it, scarcely any." But before 



— 8— 

he gets through he says : " I tell you this is a pretty good 
world, if we only try to make somebody happy in it." But? 
as already stated, we must not stop at contradictions. In 
charity we may suppose there is a first and a second thought 
here. The first thought is that the "world has not been fit 
to live in for fifty years." That is evidently not a very good 
thought. The second thought is that "this is a pretty good 
world if we only make some one happy." That is a better 
thought, and as he says second thoughts are best, let us take it 
that here there was a first and a second thought. But now let 
us try his logic. "Let every man take the road he thinks is 
right." Let us try this, and see how it will apply in some 
other cases. It is said to be a poor rule that will not work 
more than one way. Let us apply his logic to the science of 
law. Ingersoll is a lawyer. 

I find law schools established through the country. I 
step into the library of one of these schools, and I find upon 
the shelf Blackstone, and Story, and Hale, and a long array 
of eminent names. These have been looked upon as guides 
upon the plain of law; but I find that judges and lawyers, 
like other men, do not always agree. To borrow Ingersoll 's 
language, I go and talk to them and some say, you take that 
road or you will land in the lock up. I go to others, and 
they say, you take this road or you will stretch hemp. They 
are all fighting and quarrelling and beating each other* 
Then I say, "Let us cut down all these guide-boards." Let 
us demolish these law schools. Let us burn these law books. 
Then what? Why, " Let every man take the road he thinks 
is right." Let every body be his own lawyer. Try it in the 
science of medicine. I find different theories on the healing 
art. One teaches one theory, and another teaches something 
very different. One says, "Like cures like," and will give 
medicine accordingly— feed you with little sugar pills. An- 
other teaches that you must cure one pain by creating 
another somewhere else, and he will probably plaster you 
and give you calomel and jalap, and try to gallop the 
disease out of you. Another believes in a plentiful supply 
of water aud will soak you right good. Another believes in 
teas and herbs, and will dose you with these. Now, to 



— 9— 

borrow Ingersoll's logic, I go and talk to some, and they say, 
You take that road or your life will not be worth a cent! I 
go and talk to others, and they say, You take this road or 
you will very soon land in the bone yard! They are all 
fighting and quarreling and beating each other. Then I say , 
Stop this! let us cut down all these guide boards. And 
then what? "Let every man take the road he thinks is 
right." Let every man be his own doctor ! Yes, let every 
man set his own broken shins. Let every man make his 
own pills, and then when he has them made, let him swallovj 
them and be done with it ! Apply his logic to the science 
of government. Different theories obtain in regard to human 
governments. Some think a kingdom is the best form of 
government. Others would prefer a monarchy or an empire. 
Still others would make choice of democracy or a republican 
form of government. These forms are different guide boards 
on the plain of political science. In the style of Ingersoll, I 
go and talk to some, and they say, You take that road or you 
will never amount to anything as a nation. I go and talk to 
others, and they say, You take this road or you will go to 
political perdition. They are all fighting and quarreling and 
beating each other. Then I say, Let us cut down all these 
guide boards. Let us destroy all these forms of government, 
Then, "Let every man take the road he thinks is right." Let 
every man do what seems right in his own eyes. Let every 
man organize himself into a government of his own — be his 
own monarch, king, or president. But that would be com- 
munism of the worst kind. No matter. "Let every man 
take the road he thinks is right, and let every other man 
wish him a happy journey." 

What do you think of my reasoning? How do you like 
my logic? It is of a kind with Ingersoll's. It is just as 
good as his. I challenge a comparison of logic on this 
point ! Ingersoll wants to cut down all the guide boards on 
the plain of Evangelical Christianity, and then he wants 
every man to take the road he thinks is right. The amount 
of the matter is about this: Ingersoll would destroy all the 
guide boards of Christianity, and then he would run up a 
great pole and put on it a great board, and write on it in 



—10— 

great Utters, " Lib-er-ty — the Altar where I Worship — 
My Shrine — My Religion!" Now, I submit that on his 
own principles, I have a right to erect my pole and my guide 
board, and he has no business to cut it down! Now let us 
see how he applies this Liberty Religion. In his specious 
pleading he brings up everything hateful and odious that has 
been done by professing Christians; everything cruel or 
abominable that has been done in the name of Christianity. 
He mentions the instruments of torture used in the past — 
the thumb screw, the collar torture, the rack, the inquisition, 
the burning of Servetus by Calvin, the cutting out of the 
tongues of some, in short everything done by a fallen church 
and a mercenary priesthood — everything odious and hateful 
and wicked that he can think of. He rakes up and charges 
it all against Christianity, just as if all this stuff belonged to 
and was an inseparable part of Christianity. That is the 
kind of argument he uses. Now what would Col. Ingersoll 
think of me and of my reasoning, if I were to hunt up the 
records of the past for everything odious and abominable 
that has been done in the name of law, and by the authority 
of law, and plead on such grounds for the destruction of law ? 
A short time ago a young girl down in Virginia — a white 
girl of sixteen years — for petty larceny, was tied to a post, 
her back was bared and in the presence of a crowd of specta- 
tors, a burly negro laid on the prescribed number of lashes, 
and this was done in the name of and by the authority and 
majesty of law — the whole State of Virginia not only endors- 
ing, but legally ordering it so to be done. Now suppose I 
commence here, in this day of grace, and run back and over 
the past and gather up everything hateful, everything cruel, 
everything odious, everything wicked and abominable that 
has been done in the name and by the authority and majesty 
of law, and charge it all over against the science and profes- 
sion of law, as if a necessary and inseparable part of law, and 
therefore conclude the whole science of law should be knocked 
into pi. I repeat the question, What would be thought of 
me and of my logic 1 Why Ingersoll would call me a fool. 
What then, is he when he makes use of the same kind of 
sophistry against the Bible and Christianity? What shall 



—11— 

be thought of Ingersoll, when, by such logic, he seeks to 
lead astray the unwary, and to poison the minds and hearts 
of youth against the best institution that has ever blest 
humanity on the face of the earth. Is not he worse than a 
fool ? Is not he a very demon incarnate f 

Again. In the two versions of the story of creation he 
gives the Bible story in a very distorted and ridiculous manner, 
while the Hindu version is given in as good a dress as possi- 
ble, so that the former may be discounted and appear to dis- 
advantage as contrasted with the latter. Now he might have 
instituted a more telling comparison if he had tried. He 
might have inquired which of these versions, together with 
the books in which they are found, have done most for the 
countries where they obtain and are taught. Which has done 
more for humanity, the Bible or the Hindu Shaster? Which 
has done more in lifting up humanity — in civilizing and re- 
fining, in intellectual development and moral improvement? 
This would have been a more honorable way to state the 
case 1 We know something about what has been done in 
Bible lands. We know something of their systems of edu- 
cation — their public schools, their academies, their semina- 
ries, their colleges and universities, their Sunday schools and 
churches, their asylums and humanitarian institutions. We 
see here too some of the practical workings of a common 
brotherhood. When famine or pestilence breaks out in any 
spot, when a Chicago lire or a yellow fever epidemic occurs, 
how the great heart of Bible lands throbs, and how by light- 
ning flash they say, Here am I to feed you, to clothe you, to 
minister to the sick and care for the dying. But what of In- 
dia, that sunny clime, where nature is lavish with her gifts, 
where "every prospect pleases and only man is vile ?".' What 
has the Shaster done for India ? If it is four thousand years 
older than the Bible, and if it is a very great deal better and 
more lofty into the bargain, then her people should be at least 
six thousand years above Col. Ingersoll and William Shaks- 
peare on the development plan ; and small men there would 
become dizzy looking up at their sublime altitude. But alas 
for the comparison ! See the helpless victims fall by the mil- 
lion when the famine or pestilence strikes them. See the 



—12— 

degradation — the slavery of man, woman and child, the 
slavery of intellect, of muscle, and of nerve — the moral 
slavery ! See the mother bury her child alive or cast it into the 
river as an act of worship ! See the gods of wood and stone, 
the gods of water and of fire, the gods of beasts and reptiles, 
the gods of human flesh and bone, the Fakir gods — hideous, 
distorted and filthy, so that Bishop Thomson, of the M. E. 
Church, said, when looking at one of these, it reminded him 
more of the torments of the damned than anything else ! I 
know very well that Col. Ingersoll, near the close of his lec- 
ture, in apologizing for his race, says that the world is three 
times better adapted to fish culture than it is to raising man — 
that only a fourth of the earth's surface is land, and of this 
only a small belt has any degree of civilization — that on one 
side of this belt there is no genius and on the other side there 
is no brain : so that upon the whole the world is not well 
adapted to raising good people. Now it might be well 
enough to stop and notice this, but for the fact thai before he 
makes this apology he has gone nearly through his long lec- 
ture, blaming every failing and everything blameworthy upon 
orthodoxy — the Bible and Christianity. Orthodoxy and the 
Bible are the bridles keeping back the swift steed of progress. 
These are the millstones that hang about the neck of the 
goddess of liberty. Christianity is the dead weight on the 
car of civilization and of intellectual development Now it 
is rather late after all this to come in with an apology and 
try to put the blame on the Supreme Being for making a 
world not adapted to raising good people. If the Supreme 
Being is to blame for the lack of man's civilization and eleva- 
tion, then orthodoxy and the Bible and Christianity are not 
to blame, but if Christianity and the Bible are to blame for 
them, then the Supreme Being is not to blame. Here are two 
pretty well developed horns projecting from this liberty re- 
ligion. You can take hold of them, and give the animal a 
square look, and see if you can ascertain his pedigree. 

Col. Ingersoll hates what he is pleased to call orthodoxy. 
He is specially severe on the doctrine of future punishment 
under the name of hell. He avails himself of every opportu- 
nity to strike a hard blow. I can only quote you a morsel 



—13— 

here. He asks: "Where was that doctrine of hell born? 
Where did it come from ? It came from that gentleman in 
the dug-out; it was a souvenir from the lower animals. I 
honestly believe that the doctrine of hell was born in the 
glittering eyes of snakes that run in frightful coils, watching 
for their prey. I believe it was born in the yelping and 
howling and growling and snarling of wild beasts. I believe 
it was born in the grin of the hyenas, and in the malicious 
chatter of depraved apes. I despise it, I defy it, and I hate 
it." After this bit of ebullition, he does not get on far until 
he charges upon orthodoxy this, " That those in heaven can 
look upon the agonies of those in hell, whether it be fire or 
whatever it is, without having the happiness of those in 
heaven decreased." That, he says, is orthodoxy, and is 
preached from every orthodox pulpit in the land. Now I 
confess that I have never read that in the creed of any ortho- 
dox church, and I am sure I have never heard it preached. But 
he says it is orthodoxy. He then gives a fancy scene to suit 
this version of orthodoxy. 

A husband and wife are living together in domestic bliss. 
They love each other affectionately. The children share in 
the happiness of that home. The husband is taken ill. They 
watch around his bedside for days and years until his pros- 
perity is gone. Then she works by day and watches by 
night until she is wasting away. Everything is done that 
loving heart and willing hands can do to alleviate his suffer- 
ings and assuage his pain. But at last he dies. His loving 
wife and children follow in sadness his remains to the grave. 
When he is buried, she makes pilgrimages to his tomb — 
plants flowers there and talks to her children of their dear 
father, and enshrines in their memory his name. He is a 
believer and goes to heaven. Finally she too dies, but she 
is an unbeliever and goes to hell. Now this husband looks 
over the battlements of heaven and sees the wife who poured 
the wealth of her affections upon him, and whom he loved 
so much, sees her with her children suffering the torments of 
hell, and the sight does not diminish his happiness. This, 
he says, is orthodoxy ! Now this is too much for his tender 
heart. It stirs up all his wrath, and he actually swears right 



—14— 

out. I beg pardon for using one of his expressions here. 
He says, " With all due respect, I say damn any such doc- 
trine as that. It never ought to be preached ; it never ought 
to be believed." But hold now. What becomes of his 
liberty religion? A little while ago he was for allowing 
every one to believe what he pleased, and express his belief 
without stint, but now he has discovered a doxy that "ought 
not to be preached, that ought not to be believed." If he 
now had the thumb screw, he would put it on this fancy 
doxy and give it several extra twists. Besides all th;s, he 
curses this orthodoxy. But where does he curse it to ? He 
has just been defying and despising hell ; and in the same 
breath he is denouncing orthodoxy. Of course, then he is 
speaking theologically. Now my dictionary defines the word 
"damn" here, "to consign to endless punishment." So then 
after all the wrathful denunciations of hell, Col. Ingersoll 
finds it convenient and necessary to have such a place into 
which to put orthodoxy, and punish it forever. He reminds 
me of a speech by Reverdy Johnson, in the United States 
Senate, during the late war. In the course of his speech, Mr. 
Johnson made reference to a Universalist minister from Bal- 
timore city, who had gone out to see some of the scenes of 
war. When he returned, he said to his congregation, 
" Friends, you know what I have been preaching to you 
about hell. I have come to the conclusion that if there is no 
hell, there ought to be one, to punish the instigators of 
this wicked rebellion, who have brought so much misery 
upon the land." Yes, there ought to be a hell — there is a 
necessity for a hell. Every class of persons are forced to the 
conclusion that hell is an actual necessity. I will put up 
General Jackson against Col. Ingersoll on this question — 
then we will have one military man pitted against another — 
a General against a Colonel. Surely the General is as good 
a man as the Colonel. He outranks him, and by so much at 
least, is his superior. The story goes that on a certain occa- 
sion, a man of Ingersoll's stripe was annoying and tantalizing 
a Christian minister on the doctrine of future punishment, in 
Jackson's presence. Finally, he turned to Jackson to know 
whether he believed in a hell. The General in that style and 



—15— 

manner characteristic of the man, turned upon the skeptic, and 
said, "I thank God there is a hell!" "Why, General, 
what would you want with a hell? " interrogated the man. 
"To punish such scoundrels as you who vilify and abuse the 
Christian religion" was the reply of "Old Hickory." 

Ingersoll says the gentleman in the dug-out — whose fore- 
head was only half as high as his teeth were long — that 
gentleman away back at the commencement of the race, that 
gentleman was orthodox. He believed there was a hell and 
was glad of it! Now General Jackson has not made any 
advancement on that original specimen of the race at this 
point. He, too, believes there is a hell, and thanks God for 
it. I confess I prefer the theology of Jackson to that of In- 
gersoll. I think the old General was about right. What! 
thank God for a hell! Yes! Here is a man who acknowl- 
edges none of the claims of heaven upon him. He denies 
the blood that bought him, tramples upon it as an unholy 
thing — does despite to the Holy Spirit, who came to enlighten 
him. Besides all this, he is guilty of robbing the poor, op- 
pressing the widow. He is guilty of fraud and violence, 
guilty of extortion and excess, guilty of blood and murder, 
guilty of all the crimes on the catalogue of evil. He revels 
in wantonness, and goes unwhipped of Justice, dies a traitor 
to God and an enemy to the race. And is there no hell 1 ? 
There ought to be one! Here is another man who acknowl- 
edges all the claims of his God upon him. He loves mercy, 
deals justly, and walks humbly before his Maker, and yet he 
is oppressed, trampled upon, his right is denied him, until 
finally he "is tied to the stake and the faggots are kindled 
around him until life ebbs out." Or it may be he is butch- 
ered in cold blood. And is there no hell ? I tell you there 
is need for one. There is a demand for one. The unavenged 
blood of the martyrs calls for a hell. The unavenged blood 
of thousands all along the ages calls for a hell. Yes, the 
unavenged blood of Cornelia Chisholm, and that of her 
brother and father demands a hell to-day! If the Universal- 
ist cannot do without a hell to punish the instigators of the 
rebellion — if Ingersoll must have a hell to put orthodoxy in — 
then I submit that orthodoxy needs a hell to vindicate the 



—16— 

justice of God, and have his government approved before the 
universe. Yes, orthodoxy needs a hell to punish "scoundrels 
who vilify and abuse the Christian religion!" "I thank 
God there is a hell!" Now let us see how he applies his 
liberty religion to the family. But first a little of family 
history. A writer in one of the religious weeklies, gives, 
under his own proper name, a leaf from the family history of 
Ingersoll. From this it appears that his father was a clergy- 
man of an Evangelical denomination, and is still remembered 
by some who were benefited by his ministration. His 
mother died when Robert was a little boy. The father 
married a second time, but the second wife, after an experi- 
ence of one year in the family, left or was taken away and 
never returned. Some years after the family removed to the 
West, where he married a third time. This third companion, 
after a short trial in her new home, also left, not to return. 
From this and more, it is evident that young Robert's early 
home was not a paradise — that he was early deprived of a 
mother's love and instructions, that the discipline was stern 
if not severe on the father's side. Now you will be prepared 
for one day's early history from his own lips. He says : 

"When I was a little fellow most everybody thought that 
some days were too sacred for young ones to enjoy themselves 
in. Sunday used to commence Saturday night at sundown, 
under the old text, 'The evening and the morning were the 
first day.' When the sun went down Saturday night dark- 
ness, ten thousand times deeper than ordinary night, fell upon 
that house. The boy that looked the sickest was regarded as 
the most pious. You could not crack hickory nuts that night, 
and if you were caught chewing gum it was another evidence 
of the total depravity of the human heart. It was a very sol- 
emn evening. We would sometimes sing 'another day has 
passed.' Everybody looked as though they had the dyspep- 
sia. The next morning the solemnity had increased. Then 
we went to church and the minister was in a pulpit about 
twenty feet high. [This was his father, I suppose.] If it 
was in the winter there was no fire ; it was not thought 
proper to be comfortable while you were thanking the Lord < 
The minister commenced at firstly and ran up to twenty- 



—17— 

fourthly, and then he divided it up again, and then he made 
some concluding remarks, and then he said lastly ; and when 
he said lastly he was about half through. Then we had what 
was called the catechism — the chief end of man. We all 
sat along with our feet about eight inches from the floor. 
The minister said 'Boys, do you know what becomes of the 
wicked ?" We all answered as cheerfully as grasshoppers in 
Minnesota, 'Yes, sir.' 'Do you know, boys, that you all ought 
to go to hell V And as a final test, 'Boys, would you be will- 
ing to go hell if it was God's will V And every little liar said, 
'Yes, sir.' The dear old minister used to try to impress upon 
our minds about how long we would stay there after we got 
there, and he used to say in an awful tone of voice : 'Sup- 
pose that once in a billion of years a bird were to come from 
some far-distant clime and carry off in its bill a grain of sand, 
when the time came when the last animal matter of which 
this mundane sphere is composed would be carried away,' 
said he, 'boys, by that time in hell it would not be sun up." 
We had this sermon in the morning and the same one in the 
afternoon, only he commenced at the other end. Then we 
started home full of doctrine. 'Not a soldier discharged his 
farewell shot ' We went sadly and solemnly back. If it was 
in tne summer and the weather was good, and we had been 
good boys, they used to take us down to the grave-yard, and 
to cheer us up we had a little conversation about coffins and 
shrouds, and worms and bones, and dust, and I must admit 
it did cheer me up when I looked at those sunken graves, 
those stones, those names half effaced with the decay of years. 
I felt cheered for, I said, 'this thing can't last always.' Then 
we had to read a good deal." Here is where his mind was 
stored with history and theology. 

" We were not allowed to read joke books, or anything of 
that kind. We read Baxter's call to the Unconverted, Fox's 
Book of Martyrs, Milton's History of the Waldenses, and 
Jenkins on the Atonement. I generally read Jenkins, and 
I have often thought that the atonement ought to be pretty 
broad in its provisions to cover the case of a man that would 
write a bcok like that for a boy. Then we used to go and 
see how the sun was getting on ; when the sun was down 



—18— 

the thing was over. I would sit three or four hours reading 
Jenkins, and then go out and the sun would not have gone 
down perceptibly. I used to think it stuck there. But it 
went down at last; it had to; that was part of the plan, and 
as the last rim of light would sink below the horizon off 
would go our hats, and we would give three cheers for liberty 
once again." 

Doubtless this picture of his early training is overdrawn, 
but now see how he surges to the opposite extreme with his 
liberty religion. "Give a child a chance," he repeats over 
several times. " If your child commits a fault, take it in your 
arms and let your heart beat against its heart; don't go and 
talk to it about hell and the bankruptcy of the universe. If 
your child tells a lie, what of it? Be honest with the child; 
tell him you told hundreds of them yourself." Why, a lie 
he says, is only a bit of strategy on the part of the child to 
keep from being flogged, and is highly commendable. And 
as for swearing, Ingersoll gives the case of a little boy that 
came under his notice, out in Grand Rapids, Michigan, whose 
parents had broken their promises and slipped away from the 
child. Standing on the door steps with his nurse as the pa- 
rents came around a street corner, the little fellow said, "there 
goes the two d — dst liars in Grand Rapids." Ingersoll says 
of this specimen, "He was a nice little boy, an American boy, 
a boy with brains, one of those boys that don't take the 
hatchet story as a fact — a boy with a level head." "When I 
was a boy we always went to bed when we were sleepy and 
we always got up when we were sleepy. Let children com- 
mence at which end of the day they please. That is their 
business. They know more about it than all the doctors in 
the world." "Do not create a child to be a post set in an or- 
thodox row ; raise investigators and thinkers, not disciples 
and followers. Cultivate reason, not faith." "You have no 
right to whip them." "I am doing what I can to save the 
flesh of children." "I tell my children this, go where you 
may, commit what crime you may, fall to what depth of 
degradation you may, I can never shut my arms, my heart, or 
my doors to you. As long as I live you shall have one sin- 
cere friend. Do not be afraid to tell anything wrong you 



—19— 

have done, ten to one if I have not done the same thing. I 
am going to live so that my children can come to my grave 
and truthfully say, 'he who sleeps here never gave us one mo- 
ment of pain.' " 

Now after all this I think it is safe to say that whatever of 
worth, whatever of manhood belongs to Ingersoll to-day he 
owes under God to his early home training, although that 
training may have been rigid and severe to a fault. I think 
it equally safe to say that if young Ingersoll had been sub- 
jected to such a laxity of discipline as he now teaches, the 
world would never have heard of Robert G. Ingersoll the law- 
yer and politician — the world would never have heard ol Rob 
ert G. Ingersoll the orator and lecturer — the world would 
never have heard of Col. Robert G Ingersoll the military 
hero, if indeed he ever has been such. But doubtless there 
would have been some account somewhere on police records, 
or on criminal dockets, of one Robert G. Ingersoll, the va- 
grant, the burglar, or the boy murderer. It is a mistake to 
suppose that discipline cannot be administered giving tempo- 
rary pain, yet perfectly consistent with love. You cannot set 
a broken bone without pain. You cannot extract a thorn 
from a child without causing pain. You cannot eliminate a 
disease from a child without giving nauseous medicine and 
causing pain. Now, if to save the physical life of the child 
it becomes necessary often to give pain, it is perfectly consist- 
ent to administer discipline for the moral life that may be 
mixed with pain. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth ; 
now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but 
grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable 
fruits of righteousness to them who are exercised thereby." 
That is not Ingersoll, but it is PauL 

There is no call at the present day for the dissemination, or 
for the inculcation of such a species of perverted liberty as 
that which Ingersoll teaches. Our boys have liberty enough 
in all conscience. They learn to draw on their boots, chew 
their tobacco, smoke cigars, flourish revolvers and belch out 
horrible oaths quite soon enough, without any encouragement 
from Col. Ingersoll, or any one else. If the truants from our 
schools, and the records from our police courts and criminal 



—20— 

dockets are any evidence it is high time that there be an 
abridgment of this liberty instead of enlarging it. Five 
hundred truants picked off the streets of one town. Eleven 
hundred and seventy-four arrests for crime under sixteen 
years of age in one city in a single year. Thirty thousand 
boys and girls, according to official statement, attending the 
saloons of Chicago as regular patrons! These are sad com- 
ments on home training and liberty religion. It is a signifi- 
cant fact that the sons of Abraham, the Jews, are seldom 
found in the hands of the police, or in the criminal courts, or 
as tramps and beggars on our streets and public highways. 
And this fact is attributable, according to the showing of a 
recent writer, to their home training, to the faithful and dili- 
gent inculcation of the diviue law. I have thought that while 
this home training is kept up in these families that they will 
be divinely cared for and preserved, however scattered and 
peeled, and that in time they will be gathered together and 
come back to one Shepherd and one fold. 

The signs of the times are ominous. The gray streaks of 
morning seem now breaking for the return of this people. 
The half of Europe to-day is hanging by the skirts ot a Jew, 
and some English statesmen are mad because this Jew is car- 
rying off the lions share of the honors. God bless the sons 
ot Abraham, and hasten their return from their wanderings 
to the fold of the Master. What we want to-day more than 
all else is "the Church in the house' — the priestly ministra- 
tions faithfully performed — the vestal fires kept brightly 
burning — positive wholesome Christian discipline adminis- 
tered in love. Given these, and we have a sure guarantee 
for the perpetuity and the moral welfare of the home, the 
Church and the State, But let such a species of liberty pre- 
vail as that which Ingersoll teaches, and you may as well give 
a final farewell to all government — home, Church and State. 
Yes, let such a species of liberty obtain, and you let loose the 
fiends of hell to hold high carnival with crime. 

And such a man is put up to run political conventions ! 
Shame! Any party that uses men like this to run its con- 
ventions, and lager beer men to make some of the leading 
planks in its platform, deserves to be scourged. Yes, any 



—21— 

party that will do this merits the execration of mankind and 
the withering curse of God ! Ingersoll is exceedingly zeal- 
ous in his religion — tries to introduce it wherever he can. 
He reminds one of the Pharisee who would compass sea and 
land to make one proselyte, and when made he is two-fold 
more the child of hell than he was before. 

If the prints have not misled me, he has been trying to in- 
troduce his religion into Congress. Now, I am sure it would 
not hurt Congress to have a little religion. Armed with a 
petition, and at the head of a delegation, Ingersoll appeared 
before the Committe on the Revision of Laws, and preached 
a long sermon on his liberty religion. Here is the report : 
"Mr. Bicknell, from the Committee on the Revision of Laws, 
to whom was referred the petition of Robert G. Ingersoll and 
others, praying for the repeal or modification of sections 
1,785, 3,878, 3,893, 5,389 and 2,401 of the Revised Statutes, 
have had the same under consideration, and have heard the 
petitioners at length. In the opinion of your committee, the 
post office was not established to carry instruments of vice or 
obscene writings, iudecent pictures or lewd books. Your 
committee believe that the statutes in question do not violate 
the Constitution of the United States, and ought not to be 
changed. They recommend, therefore, that the prayer of the 
said petition be denied." Who will say after this that there 
is no virtue in Congress ! These Congressional lawyers are 
not quite ready yet for Ingersoll's religion. They have not 
developed up to the visionary plain of liberty that floats 
through the fertile brain of this modern apostle. 

Once more, I want to give you something grand and 
beautiful. After an eloquent passage concerning the first 
Napoleon, Ingersoll says, " I would rather have been a 
French peasant and worn wooden shoes, and lived in a little 
hut, with a vine running over the door, and the purple 
grapes growing red in the amorous kisses of the autumn sun. 
I would rather have been that poor French peasant, and sit 
in my door with my wife knitting by my side, and my child- 
ren upon my knees with their arms about my neck. I would 
raiher have lived and died unnoticed and unknown, except 
by those who loved me, and gone down to the voiceless 



-22- 

silence of the dreamless dust. I would rather have been that 
French peasant, than to have been that imperial impersona- 
tion of force and murder, who covered Europe with blood ano\ 
tears. I would rather go to the forest, far away, and build 
me a little cabin — build it myself and daub it with mud, and 
live there with my wife and children. I had rather go there 
and live by myself —our little family — and have a little path 
that led down to the spring, where the water bubbled out 
day and night, like a little poem from the heart of the earth ; 
a little hut with some hollyhocks at the corner, with their 
bannered blosoms open to the sun, and with the thrush in 
the air, like a song of joy in the morning. I would rather 
live there and have some lattice work across the windows so 
that the sunlight would fall checkered on the baby in the 
cradle. I would rather live there and have my soul erect 
and free, than to live in a palace of gold and wear the crown 
of imperial power, and know that my soul was slimy with 
hypocrisy. It is not necessary to be rich and great and 
powerful in order to be happy," Now that is simply beauti- 
ful, it is grand. As a family picture, it only lacks one thing 
to make it complete. It would seem like presumption in me 
to undertake to give it a finishing touch. I am not an ora- 
tor. I am not an artist. I am not gifted with the power of 
description, and yet I will undertake to present a picture 
supplying the part that is lacking in the one just given. But 
mine shall not be a fancy picture. It shall not be an ideal 
one, but it shall be one from real life — one of actual occur- 
rence, coming under personal observation. A picture indeed 
not of rare occurence in a Christian land ; but a picture such 
as Col. Ingersoll might search for in vain in the "Land of the 
Veda," a land where he says a version of the story of creation 
obtains several thousands years older and much more grand 
and elevated than the Bible version, and by parity of reason- 
ing, a story that ought to have done so much more for the 
elevation, refinement, and intellectual development of that 
people, than the Bible version has done for man where it 
obtains. But, alas, for the comparison ! I say that Col. In- 
gersoll might search that land in vain for even a counterpart 
of his own beautiful, fancy family picture. Much less could 



—23— 

he find one such as I trust I may be able to give. The scene 
of my picture is laid on the banks of Pine creek, on a line 
between the counties of Clinton and Lycoming, at a little 
place called Phelps' Mills in this State, (Pa.) The time, the 
autumn of '68. It was a Sabbath evening when I drew up 
at the residence of the leading business man of the commu- 
nity, and a prominent member of a sister church. The 
shades of night were gathering. Already the evening lamps 
were shedding artificial light through the windows. It was 
vesper hour. Rapping at the door, I was met by my host 
with a large family Bible in his arms. Entering, I found the 
family — mother, preceptress and children seated around a 
stand, beneath suspended lamp, each one supplied with an 
open copy of God's Word. Grandmother sat a little to one 
side without a book. The little dog lay snugly curled on 
the floor rug with the cat for his pillow. Seemingly looking 
down upon the scene from above the mantle-piece, neatly 
framed and in golden letters, was the motto, "God bless our 
Home." My host remarked that they observed an old Scotch 
custom of reading the Scriptures in rotation. After the mo- 
mentary interruption, we were all seated, an extra copy of 
God's word was placed in my hands, and the reading con- 
tinued around the circle. The lesson ended, the books were 
closed, when the mother, in a clear, sweet, musical voice, 
struck up that grand old hymn of Toplady's: 

Rock of ages, cleft for me, 

Let me hide myself in tliee; 

Let the water and the blood 

From thy wounded side which flowed, 

Be of sin the double cure, 

Save from wrath and make me pure. , 

Other voices blended in as the song continued. 

Could my tears forever flow, 
Could my zeal no languor know, 
These for sin could not atone, 
Thou must save, and thou alone. 
In my hands no price I bring, 
Simply to thy cross I cling. 



—24— 

Still upward the voice of song was wafted : 

While I draw this fleeting breath, 
When my eyes shall close in death, 
When I rise to worlds unknown, 
And behold thee on thy throne, 
Rock of ages, cleft for me, 
Let me hide myself in thee. 

The song of praise ended, while doubtless attending angels 
looked on with intense interest, we all kneeled down, and 
amid the profound hush of the household my host talked 
with the Invisible One. He returned thanks for the mercies 
and blessings of the day which had come and gone; he in- 
voked benedictions upon the community in which he lived, 
and upon the world of mankind. He committed his family 
i:.to His special watch care, while he did not forget to make 
kindly mention of the friend who had just turned in. This 
deeply solemn, interesting and impressive service over, we 
gathered up our hats, and went from the church in the house 
to the church in its more extended form in the chapel near 
by, where I tried to preach the Word of Life. Now, if you 
have a mind to, you can frame these two pictures, and write 
under one, "A Fancy Family Scene,' 1 ' and under the other, 
U A Heal Family Scene" and then hang them up together: or 
better, you can blend them into one, and then you will have 
a picture full and symmetrica], for if you will take the beau- 
tiful fancy family picture drawn by Ingersoll, and make it a 
real one, then if you will insert the altar, the priestly min- 
istrations, the voice of sacred song, the incense of prayer, 
and the missionary box, you will have the picture complete 
in all its parts; you will have a picture the counterpart of 
heaven ; you will tiave a picture as near perfection as you 
will get it this side the glory land. God grant that such 
pictures may be multiplied until one may be found in every 
family in every land. 



RD-1* 



'1 



• % 6* 



G^^-% y\.afeX G^^> , 








1 * *5>^ 










«*, 


















V 



^ /^ 



4 <^v 

1_» *<» 



»°> 



£• *<& t ** •; 






♦ - -o 



\ 




: -^ 




Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Jan. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 



V» %* *••• ,*V> %^ 111 Thomson Park Drive 

Jb o ° " * m ^a. O - • fc ' * * O^ Cranberry Township. PA 16066 



'-P. « 



(724)779-2111 



^ <.- 



